dépatouiller
French, verb/de.pa.tu.je/
dépatouiller is spelled D-É-P-A-T-O-U-I-L-L-E-R (12 letters) and appears about once in every 12 million words in written French, the 113,280th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Dépatouiller is a French verb meaning “to extricate oneself from a situation, get oneself out of it, to muddle through” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “(Utilisé uniquement dans se dépatouiller) Parvenir à s’en sortir malgré les difficultés”.
What does dépatouiller mean in English?
verb
- 1
informalto extricate oneself from a situation, get oneself out of it, to muddle through
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. (Utilisé uniquement dans se dépatouiller) Parvenir à s’en sortir malgré les difficultés.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of dépatouiller
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- dépatouillant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- dépatouillé participle past
- dépatouille first-person indicative present
- dépatouilles indicative present second-person
- dépatouillons first-person indicative plural
- dépatouillez indicative plural present
- dépatouillent indicative plural present
- dépatouillais first-person imperfect indicative
- dépatouillait imperfect indicative singular
- dépatouillions first-person imperfect indicative
- dépatouilliez imperfect indicative plural
- dépatouillaient imperfect indicative plural
- dépatouillai first-person historic indicative
- dépatouillas historic indicative past
- dépatouilla historic indicative past
- dépatouillâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce dépatouiller?
- /de.pa.tu.je/
- \de.pa.tu.je\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is dépatouiller in French?
dépatouiller appears about once in every 12 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).